Muggleborn Teacher
by White Angel of Auralon
Summary: Keith Brackwood was disillusioned with the wizarding world. So he, like many other muggleborns, returned to the muggle world and after taking his A-levels and finishing university he took a position at a small primary school in Little Whinging. He couldn't have foreseen how this decision would influence the fate of the savior of Wizarding Britain. Child Harry fic.
1. The Young Teacher

**Hi, everybody. This is a little story that came to my mind when I read one of the stories where Harry gets a different childhood away from the Dursleys, growing up knowing about magic. Now my idea was to write how it could be if there was somebody in Little Whinging helping him.**

**As always I own nothing about Harry Potter, just this idea. **

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**The Young Teacher**

Keith Brackwood was setting up his study in the house he had just inherited from his grandmother. She had died with 85 years of age, a good, old age and she had simply stopped breathing in her sleep. Just like most wanted to leave this world. Keith himself was grateful that she had left him her house in this town while the other members of his family got investments, cash or had to negotiate who got how much of the family mansion. Yes, his grandmother and grandfather had been rich to boot. The family business which his grandfather had set up after World War II had bloomed in England and even survived the economic crisis.

Keith had worked in the business after school while he caught up on his high school education. Now many would rightfully ask why he had to catch up on his high school education after he had finished school. Well, Keith wasn't normal. He was a muggleborn wizard. It had shocked his family when they were informed about what the incidents that had happened in his childhood really meant. After some discussions and explanations from Professor McGonagall who had come to their home to inform them about Keith's place at Hogwarts, the best magical school in England, his parents had agreed to let him got there.

It was a great place, but too soon Keith realised that not everything in the wizarding world was great. There was bigotry against people like him who had non-magical parents. He had been called nasty things and been bullied. Mostly by Slytherins, but others had also looked down on him. His housemates in Hufflepuff had been great, but with a war going on that targeted people like him, he didn't know what kind of future he would have in the wizarding world. After graduating with good marks in Transfiguration, Charms, Herbology, Potions and Ancient Runes he hoped to find a good, nice job. Which turned out to be nearly impossible.

First, most businesses were owned by old pureblood families. As he found out nearly eighty per cent of them believed in the bullshit You-Know-Who preached. Ten per cent while not following You-know-Who preferred to hire people from magical families. The remaining ter per cent were pressured by the others to not hire people of 'lower' blood status.

Oh yes, the wizarding world was so advanced (insert sarcasm). He had tried to find a job dozens of times. But he never had success. So he decided to cut his losses and leave the wizarding world and its unfairness behind. Thanks to telling his grandparents everything that had happened and how nobody ever told the muggleborns what they could expect after school they agreed to let him work in their business in a low position until he got caught up with his education and could go and get a degree in a subject he liked. He had worked eight hours each day from seven in the morning till half past three in the afternoon at his grandparents' business before he got his A-levels. He had never before been as grateful to his siblings as then because they had helped him catch up within two years. It was enough to get him a place at university where he studied to become a teacher for primary school students.

He knew that he had missed a lot while being in the wizarding world, but at primary school that wouldn't matter as much. Right now after he had passed his last exams he had got a position as a teacher for English and Maths at Stonewall Primary School in Little Whinging, Surrey. Which was the reason why he was so happy to have inherited this house. Privet Drive number 14 was in no way as impressive as any of the other houses his family owned, but it was close to his new place of work. The house had been rented out until six months ago when the occupant moved away due to being promoted and taking a new position in Manchester. He had organised for the house to be renovated by professionals while he sorted out his possessions.

After they had finished their work he had got a moving company to transport all his old and new things to the house and once there he and two friends from university started placing the furniture where he wanted it. They had positions in other schools, so they had promised each other to have at least two big get-togethers of the old clique each year to not lose sight of each other completely. Now Keith was putting books into shelves, filled the cupboards in the kitchen and went grocery shopping.

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He came across a strange family. There was a blond woman who had a strange resemblance with a horse, he knew it wasn't nice to think like that, but it was the simple truth, she had two boys with her, one with blond hair, that boy was severely overweight and needed to be put on a diet urgently to avoid the boy having medicinal problems later in his life, and a black haired boy who looked like a stick, especially next to the fat boy.

The woman seemed to baby the fat boy and treat the black-haired boy overly harshly. That didn't really make sense to him. Why would she treat two boys close in age to each other that differently? He didn't have time to think about it a lot as the woman put the boys into the car, the blond first while the other boy had to place the bags into the boot of the car strangely, and drove away. Well, right now it didn't matter, he would probably find out the circumstances behind that curiosity when he started working as the two boys probably would go to his school this year or next.

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The conference two weeks before the new school year was interesting. They were told about the new guidelines the government had given out for the schools, the funding the school had available, how health organisations wanted school cafeterias to give out healthy food to the children, especially at primary school, and how their school was part of a testing group how the children took to the changes, both from liking the food and their health. A peculiar part was a warning one of the parents had given the school about a boy that would start school this year. From what the aunt of the boy, one Petunia Dursley, said, the boy was a trouble maker and needed a strict hand. Her own son Dudley Dursley would start together with her nephew Harry Potter.

Keith was startled at the name a bit. While he didn't live in the wizarding world anymore, he had heard from old school friends that a boy called Harry Potter had survived a killing curse from You-Know-Who himself and had defeated the Dark Lord and freed them all. It had to be a coincidence. He had seen James Potter at school of course, it was hard not to with how much trouble the five years younger Gryffindor got into with his friends and with him being accepted at the Quidditch team in his second year, but nobody would leave his son in the muggle world to grow up.

So he pushed that thought away. The strange part was that seemingly some of the teachers had heard horror stories about the boy from his aunt before. How could a five year old boy be the monster they described? It seemed like none of the other two that were planned to take on one of the three new first-year classes was keen to have Harry in their class. Well, if they didn't want the boy, he would take him. New teachers often were roped into taking a first-year class as the homeroom teacher to give them experience with the youngest and therefore supposedly easiest-to-handle children. Sometimes it was also a test to see if they would sink or swim.

"If you are opposed to taking Harry into your class, I will do it." Keith said. "I can't really imagine a five year old boy to be that bad. And if he really is mean to his cousin we could probably solve that problem by putting them in separate classes. I know that it would be unusual, but it would avoid a lot of problems we were warned about."

"Not a bad idea, Keith." Howard Fitz agreed. "Just keep a close eye on him."

Keith nodded towards the principal.

"Alright, the classrooms for the new first-years are in the south wing this year. The rooms that the former fifth years had are going to be the ones for the new first-years, meaning rooms S 11 and S 12 on the first floor as well as S 24 on the second floor. Keith, you take S 24, Karen, you get S 11 and Jane, you have S 12. Make the rooms comfortable for the children, but don't forget to give clear rules." Howard reminded them and got three nods. "Now the second to fifth-years keep their rooms except for the 4b as their room needs to be renovated. Jack, you will move to room E 5 for this year."

The addressed teacher nodded. The talks continued until the timetables were worked out and the fields and gyms for physical education classes were booked for each class.

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Harry Potter was not sure what he should think about going to primary school. Sure, Dudley had been going to nursery school for over a year already, something Harry hadn't been allowed as he was a freak and didn't deserve that, but primary school was compulsive for all children in England and therefore he had been admitted to Stonewall Primary School, the only primary school in Little Whinging. He had been massively warned to not give his teachers any trouble and follow their instructions. Dudley had got much praise and had been told how well he would do there. And he got a lot of presents and sweets for finally starting real school. Harry didn't know what he should do. He had never got to play with other children, so he didn't know how to do it. And Dudley always hurt him when they played. Would other children do it too?

Well, there was no way around this. Aunt Petunia had put them both into the car and had driven to the school. From the gate it looked quite nice. A big building with a playground and grassy fields around it. Some places had pictures drawn on them where Harry could see older children play some game that involved throwing a stone onto the picture and then hopping on one or two legs around the picture. It looked like being fun. Aunt Petunia led him and Dudley to a big room where lots of people were assembled and sat on chairs with cushions on them. They sat down close to the front because Dudley wanted to have good sight of the play that had been promised to him by his mother.

Harry found the introduction to the school rules that were shown to the new students funny. Somebody used puppets on strings to show what was wrong and what was right. Then the three teachers that would be the homeroom teachers for the new first-years were called forward and they introduced themselves a bit. Harry tried to remember their names. Aunt Petunia was always angry if he didn't remember the name of somebody and then she yelled at him. He didn't want to be yelled at on his first day at school. Then the first class was being called with Jane Cooper as the homeroom teacher. Dudley was in that class. While Harry still had to wait for his turn his aunt harshly whispered to him to not give her or his uncle any trouble and that he would be very sorry if they ever were called to school over something he did. Harry only meekly nodded.

Then after the second class had followed Karen Smith the last class under Keith Brackwood was called and his name was also called. He stood up and carried his old backpack with him. Dudley had got a new one for school, but Uncle Vernon had said that he didn't deserve a new backpack and should be grateful for the one he got at all. Thankfully the other things he needed were really cheap and big sales were always done before school started, so he got notebooks, pencils and the workbooks they needed for first year all new. Of course they were the cheapest ones there were, but he didn't mind; they were his and he would take good care of them. He and the other children in his class followed their new homeroom teacher up two floors until they found a room with a sign on the door that read 1-C, which was their class as they had been told downstairs.

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**That was the introduction into the story. What do you think so far?**


	2. Getting to Know the Class

**Wow, I'm baffled. Over one hundred reviews in one week for the first chapter. Thanks to everybody that left one. I hope I can live up to your hopes and expectations. Now happy reading for the next one.**

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**Getting to Know the Class**

The first thing they noticed when they entered the room was that it was painted in a soft yellow and that on the back wall was a bit picture of a tree with big leaves. On the side walls of the room were a lot of tables, but right now there was a circle of chairs in the middle of the room.

"Alright, please take a seat; it doesn't matter where you sit." Keith said.

The children followed the instructions and looked around curiously after putting their bags under the chairs.

"Good morning everyone. This is your first day at school and I am sure it is really exciting for all of you. As you all live in different parts of the town I think that you don't know all of your new class mates. We will play some games so that you have an easier time remembering all the names here during the first two weeks. This year we will do several subjects together. We will learn all the letters of the alphabet, we will work on learning how to read and write and learn the numbers from one to ten." He started giving the children time to think about this as he knew that young children needed a little time to process information. They learned quickly, but you sometimes had to repeat things and you needed to teach them slowly. "Once we get to that part we will do easy calculations and learn more about animals that live in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales." Another pause to let them understand what he had told them. "Later we will cover some plants and learn more about different kinds of sports in Physical Education or PE for short."

He took out a big coloured sheet which he had prepared to explain the time-table. He planned to make remembering what kind of classes the children had easy for them. They were excited to hear all the things they would get to do at school.

"Now as I know that this is too much to remember I have prepared your timetables. As you can see here on the big one in my hands, which we will stick onto the wall so that you can all see it, I have given each class a different colour on the timetable. That one is the same as yours, but with different colours you can remember which class you have next easier. If you want you can later colour your own timetables as well." That got some happy faces of the children. "Now I am calling out a colour and then the class it means. Blue is for your English classes." He stated and looked around if the children paid attention which they all did.

"Green is for maths and yellow means PE." He pointed at the mentioned spots.

"So have you memorized that so far?" He asked

"Yes." The children chorused.

"Then we will test that. What does green mean?" He asked.

"Maths." Most children called out.

"Very good. And blue?" he continued.

"English." A few less children could answer.

"That's right and last what is yellow?" He wanted to know.

"PE." They all answered having remembered that as it had been the last one to be mentioned.

"Good, now we know about three colours and what they mean. But there are a few others. Are you ready to find out what they mean?" He asked and got a chorus of 'yes' back.

"The next colour is red and it means Art." He pointed at a field. "Violet is Music."

He let them look at the fields and try to remember the classes that went with a colour. He knew this wasn't that easy as the children were all only five years old.

"Now the last two: Orange is Science and the turquoise is for class orientation. That is a time one hour each week where you can ask about things you want to know about that we didn't talk about in class or if you have problems that you need help with. You can also always come to me if you have problems at home. I will do my best to help you."

The children smiled at him.

"Okay, let's see if you remember the new colours and what they mean. What is violet?" He asked.

Some answered Art, some Music.

"Ah, it is music, but don't worry, it is a lot to remember. Let's try the next one, what does turquoise stand for?"

"Orientation." They easily answered.

"This time you are all right. Now tell me the meaning of red." He challenged them.

"Art." A few called out that had been unsure with violet before.

"Indeed it is. And orange." He finished.

"Science." Some called out and he nodded.

"Good, now you can see that most of our classes are either green, blue or orange. That means most of your classes will be English, Maths or Science. That is because there is the most to learn for you; therefore you get a lot of time in those subjects." He pointed out and got nods.

"The others are often in the afternoon as you can concentrate best in the mornings after having slept well and eaten breakfast at home. And the three in which you have most classes need more concentration than the others. PE, Music and Art are all about being creative and moving around, so they don't need as much concentration." He explained. "You will have most of your classes in this room. In case you have the class elsewhere your teacher will take you there for the first class you have, so if you don't know where to go, always come back to our classroom."

He let his gaze go over all the children, trying to remember their looks. It would definitely take some time to memorize all their names.

"Alright, now to start things off I want to explain the big picture of the tree on the back wall. That is our class's wall of honour." He said, having the five year olds hang on his every word with how dramatically he said that.

"As you saw in the play, there are certain rules that we all have to follow, right?" He asked and the children all answered with a loud 'yes'.

Though the little black-haired boy that he had seen before at the supermarket with his family looked unsure how to react. Perhaps he was simply a bit shy.

"Well, I have decided that within our class we will make sure that we honour if somebody does something especially well. Like being able to recite the whole alphabet without mistake. Or do a calculation perfectly. We will put photos of each of you into each of the leaves of the tree and write your name under the photo. I have brought a camera for that so you don't have to worry if you can't find a good photo. We will take the photos after breakfast break." That got excited chattering again.

"Below your photo we will mark with a golden star if you did something really well. And not only things you did well for school will earn you a star, but also if you help a classmate or a teacher. I believe that to be a good person is as important as to be really smart." He let that message sink in. "We will create some flower pots for our windows which you will all take care of together. It will be one of the chores in class that three of you do each week. I have already drawn up a list when each of you has those duties. And it is completely fair as each of you gets to do each chore the same amount of time. At the beginning of each week I will remind those that have the chores that it's their turn. Our common chores are cleaning the blackboard before each class, watering the plants once we have them and making sure that no rubbish is lying around in the room. We have a rubbish bin and I want you to use it."

"Yes, Mr Brackwood." The children chorused.

"Very good." The bright smiles of the children over being praised were really too cute.

"Okay, that's enough information for now; let's start with a game to get to know each other better. We are twenty-four children in this class. That means each of you needs to remember twenty-three names next to mine. That's a lot. So we will first keep it to our first names. The game works this way. The first person says his or her first name and favourite colour. For me that would be: My name is Mr Brackwood and I like blue." He gave an example. "Can you all do that?" He got a chorus of yes's from the children.

They played one round of the game in the easy variant to have the children loosen up and get comfortable with the others. Something as harmless as a favourite colour wouldn't make any child freak out.

"That was very good. The next part of the game is to not only say your own name and favourite colour, but also those of the two people to your left. That means you have to pay attention what they say. It will work like this: My name is Mr Brackwood and I like blue. Next to me is Sarah and she likes pink. Next to Sarah is Tim and he likes red."

He had paid attention to all children to get the names down better and especially the ones on the two seats to his left to explain this part of the game. He let the children repeat the first round so that they could try and remember the names of the two people to their left and the respective favourite colours. The repetition of the names helped the children getting the names down easier.

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The next game built up on the previous game. He let the children put the chairs away with the tables and had them put their backpacks below them and then return to the middle of the classroom. It was time to let them run around a bit. Five year old children didn't like sitting still for long periods of time. He explained that the game needed them to sort themselves by the first letter of their first names. To make it easier for the children he handed them the letters which he had prepared beforehand. After all, they hadn't learned the alphabet yet, but recognising a letter equal to the one you had was doable. The game doubled to learn the alphabet.

Soon the children were running around the room, trying to find others with the same letter. It took ten minutes for everybody to find the others. Then Keith called them up by their letters, he also held a big paperback letter up to let them recognise it easier, and let them say their name, showing that they were in the right group. First A, which included Annabel, Aaron and Angela, second was B for Betty and Brian; they had no C's so the D with Daniel was next. In the end the children stood in a line, sorted by their first names.

"Great, now I think we can move to our next game. I will play music and you run around the room as much as you can and mix around. When I stop the music you grab the right hand of your neighbour with your own right hand. Can you all show me your right hands?" He asked and the children waved their right hands in the air. "That's right. You have to take the right hand of the child next to you when the music stops. Once you all have taken a hand, you say the other child's name. If you don't remember, you ask. Once everyone has it right, we will do it again." Keith explained and started the game.

After a few rounds he was fairly sure that the children had most of the names down. For now it was enough. The children were getting tired from running around so much. So he decided to show them their respective hangers for their jackets and their lockers. Of course for the first to third-years the teachers were the ones who set the combinations to open each locker. They also had a list with each child's locker number and combination in case a child forgot his. And these lockers had easy combinations for the children to memorize. They would take care of that part tomorrow though. There was too much to do now to let each child learn their three number combination. They stored the things of the children that weren't currently needed in the lockers before going back to class.

Keith let the children rebuild the circle of chairs and started to tell them how breakfast and lunch breaks would work.

"Okay, I don't know if your parents have already told you this, but here at school we have a special program that has to do with the breaks when we get to eat breakfast and lunch. For this year the school has got the money from the government, that's the people who think about how to lead our country the best way, to have breakfast and lunch ready for all of you. For breakfast we have the choice between chocolate milk and milk for drink and you will get a choice between different prepared sandwiches. On top of that there will be a basket with different kinds of fruit for you to choose from." He showed them pictures that the health agencies had given the school with images of a cow and a milk bottle on one, some fruits on another and tasty looking sandwiches on the next.

"For lunch we get three different kinds of meals each day that our school cooks have prepared." Keith told them. "Now what I want to know is if you want chocolate milk or milk for breakfast so I can order it for our breakfast breaks from tomorrow on. For today we have ordered milk for every class as we couldn't know your preference."

Soon he had gone over the class list and wrote the choice of each child behind the name. The school had sent pamphlets to the parents to inform them of the governmental program that would supply breakfast and lunch for the children according to guides for healthy diets. Some had complained, but the school didn't budge. If they wanted their children to get different food, they would have to serve it for dinner. It wasn't as if they were poisoning the children after all. He wondered how they would react after finding out that mandatory health checks were also part of the program. His thoughts drifted to Harry Potter. He looked impossibly much like James Potter, so there was a big probability that somebody had indeed sent the boy to the muggle world. Perhaps relatives on his mother's side of the family? He lived with the Dursleys and it could be that either his aunt or uncle was related to his mother because James had been a pureblood, one of the few ones that didn't bully muggleborns just because they could. He still had pranked many people including muggleborns, but mostly the arrogant purebloods in Slytherin were his and his friends' targets.

The boy was nothing like the warnings of his aunt. Harry had found into the class easily after loosening up a little during the games. He did everything he was told without complaint and paid attention when he said something. So far he was a little angel. He would have to watch more in the future, but so far he didn't think the warnings were justified. He was rather worried about how he looked like. He looked younger than he was. Well, in his case it would be a blessing that the school supplied food and drinks for two meals of the day. Something was off with that family and it wasn't little Harry as far as he could see.

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**And done. I don't know if the next chapter will be up next week, but I'll at least try to keep an update rhythm of every two weeks. Till next time.**


	3. Starting into the New School Year

**Hi everybody, I'm back with the next chapter. Thanks for all the reviews. I know that the school systems are different in Britain than in Germany, but I think what I describe in my story isn't too outlandish, so bear with it.**

**I hope you like the new chapter. Happy reading.**

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**Starting into the School Year**

At the end of the day the teachers waited for the first-years to be collected by their parents. That would be the routine for the next month until the children were used to going to school. Keith then rearranged the tables for the next day. Tomorrow they would start learning easy words based on a few letters. It would take many weeks to cover all letters of the alphabet, but teaching young children was really rewarding in his eyes. It was something he loved doing and he wasn't the least bit sorry anymore that he hadn't stayed in the wizarding world. Sure, he had friends that were witches and wizards and they kept in contact, but none of them had ever been able to help him get a job that suited his talents.

And he had been really disillusioned with Albus Dumbledore, the supposed infallible Leader of the Light. He had never stepped in when pureblood supremacists bullied muggleborns at school. Oh, he talked about promoting muggleborn rights, but there was no action to prove it. They were allowed to go to Hogwarts to prevent them having uncontrolled bouts of accidental magic which would reveal magic to the muggle world, that was all there was to it. In the end you either had the chance to leave for other countries that had better chances to offer to the brightest muggleborns or you went back to the muggle world and struggled to catch up on your non-magical education, which was hard as hell. No, the system was set up so that most muggleborns would fail and be left destitute after school.

He would like to warn parents of muggleborn children of the dangers of simply sending their children off to Hogwarts. But the names weren't known before the children went there. And by then it was too late to really do something. The children that went to Hogwarts would need to keep up with at least their studies in Maths, English and Science to have a chance to get a good job in the muggle world. He had thankfully been able to easily pass his English A-levels and a bit of help with Maths made that one doable as well, but Biology, Chemistry, Physics and History were much harder as there was nothing even remotely resembling them at Hogwarts. Arithmancy, which he had taken up until OWLs was similar to Maths, so getting the missing parts wasn't really that difficult. Writing endless essays helped in the English exams as he had liked to keep reading classical English literature in his free time.

But the classes that were purely non-magical were much harder to work with. Well, after getting help from his famil,y he had managed to find back into this world and he wouldn't miss the wizarding world a lot. He still used magic for a few things, but rarely. He only kept his wand on his person out of habit and in case something bad happened. You never knew after all.

For tomorrow he had planned to randomly seat the children across the room in groups of four. With twenty-four children he had six table groups, which worked perfectly for the plans he had for his class.

* * *

Harry was really happy how his first day of school had gone. Mr Brackwood was really nice and his classmates also were nice. He had had fun playing games and learning the other children's names. And in a few days he would have his photo put on one of the leaves on the wall of his classroom. He really wanted to earn some stars to show his homeroom teacher that he wanted to be a good boy. So far school was really great. He was glad that Dudley was in another class. This way he didn't have to fear that his aunt and uncle accused him of being mean to Dudley at school. He could simply stay with the other children in his class and then there would be no problem at all.

And the food they all got during breakfast and lunch break was really good. He had signed up for getting milk as his drink for breakfast, knowing that Aunt Petunia had forbidden him to drink chocolate milk. But getting normal milk was already great. Normally he only got water from the tap. The sandwiches were completely different from what Aunt Petunia served at home. There were things on them that Harry had never seen in the fridge of Number Four before. Salad and fresh cucumber for example. The cheese and ham on the sandwich he had had he had seen before though.

Fresh fruits were also rarely seen at the Dursleys'. Uncle Vernon called it rabbit food and wouldn't eat it at all. When Harry arrived hom,e he was told by his aunt to put his things into his cupboard and come help her peel potatoes for dinner. She was ranting about the school starving her precious Dudders. Harry didn't understand what she was mad about, but he wouldn't ask, knowing that that wouldn't do him any good. She always hated it when he asked questions. So he quietly sat down on a stool and started peeling potatoes with the knife his aunt handed him. He knew he had to be careful because the knife was sharp and it hurt if you got cut. Not to mention that Aunt Petunia would yell at him again for dropping blood on the floor.

So after half an hour Aunt Petunia had finished preparing everything for dinner. Harry really wondered how anybody would be able to eat such large amounts of food. But perhaps with so much he would get a little more than normally. When he was told to go and weed a flower bed until dinner, he overheard Dudley complaining loudly about school and how the other children in his class were all mean and that he didn't want to go there again. Harry didn't know why they would be mean, his classmates were really nice to him. Dudley also ranted about his teacher being mean and not letting him play like he wanted to.

* * *

It had been one week since school had started again and the teachers of Stonewall Primary School had another staff meeting to discuss how the students found back into life at school and mainly how the new first-years were doing. After all, for them being away from home for most of the day was completely new and the teachers had now started with the basic lessons.

"So, as we will need most time for the first-years, do we have any problems with older children?" Howard asked.

"Some trouble with Gordon Veilcloud who again forgot to do his homework properly. If we hadn't investigated and found out that the whole family is notoriously forgetful I would say it was ill will," Steven Waterwall commented sighing.

"I had hoped he would grow out of it," Howard replied, "I have sadly no idea how we could manage that he doesn't forget to do it. It will only influence his grades negatively. And more than an hour for doing homework in the afternoon doesn't fit into the timetables."

"I know, I'm making sure already that he at least uses the full hour to get done as much as possible," Steven agreed.

"Well, we can only keep going on, but I really fear for him once he goes to secondary school next year. There the teachers won't be able to watch over him like we did," Howard said.

It was a sad truth that secondary schools didn't have the means to watch over single students as much as primary schools could, especially in smaller towns like Little Whinging.

"Do we have other problems with the older years?" Howard asked but got only shaken heads. "Very well, then the first-years. Keith, how is Harry Potter, our announced troublemaker, doing?"

"He's no troublemaker at all, Howard; I think his aunt simply dislikes him for something his parents did. I have never seen a child as polite and well-behaved as him. I can put him with any of the other children and he simply does everything he can to please. He also is really eager to learn. His notebooks are exemplary and perfectly well-cared for. I have no idea how he got the bad reputation the people in my street give him. As you know I live at Privet Drive where the Dursleys also live, but I can't confirm the image of the troublemaker that is spread there with the sweet boy I have in my class," Keith said.

"Really? That's indeed strange," Jane Cooper commented, "Contrary to your observations, his cousin is a devil. He thinks he can make the other children do what he wants and he throws temper tantrums when he doesn't get his will. He also is prone to being violent when that doesn't work. I don't know how often I have had to have him stand in the corner after he hit another child. And there is no sign of him getting better. I know he complains to his mother about how I am mean and treat him unfairly. She already sent me a scathing letter to not abuse her son in my class."

Howard frowned. There really seemed to be something majorly wrong with that family. The boy they had been warned about behaved like an angel and the one they had thought would be a normal boy was a terror. And the mother seemingly didn't want to see any flaws in her son and instead blamed the teacher. Perhaps it was a good thing that they had placed both boys in different classes or there might be blaming Harry for Dudley's misdeeds.

"We will keep a close eye on things there. And I want you two, Jane and Keith, to watch over the children at the playground closely. That's the only time the boys could see each other. I want to know exactly what each of them does," Howard stated.

"I did that anyway," Keith said and Jane only nodded.

It was common to keep an eye on your first-year class to avoid problems that the youngest children couldn't deal with yet.

"Good. Now any other observations?" Howard asked.

"Cindy Myers has some problems with home-sickness after lunch. She needs more time to get used to being away from her mother for more than a few hours. I guess she is one of the few that didn't go to nursery school," Karen commented, "I normally try and distract my class with games and such, but it is really difficult for her."

"Keep going on, it will get better, normally by next week Cindy should be over the problem. Does she have problems connecting with her classmates?" Howard asked.

"No, she has two good friends in Martha and Delilah. The problem only starts when she realises for how long she hasn't seen her mother, which normally is after resting hours," Karen said.

"Then my estimation should come true. If it doesn't get better by the end of the month we need to see if we can find a way to help her better," Howard said.

They continued talking about some other students and then wrapped the meeting up, everybody wanted to go home.

* * *

Dudley Dursley officially hated school. Nobody there let him do what he wanted and the teachers had it out for him. At home his Mum catered to his every wish and he wanted it to be like that at school too, but the teachers didn't do it. They always said that he wasn't better than the other children in his class and that he had to share the things that belonged to the whole class. On top of that learning reading and writing was boring. He wanted to watch TV instead, but he had to sit on his chair all the time and be quiet, otherwise the teacher would tell him off again. While he was in the same class as his friends from nursery school, Piers and Malcolm, the other children always made fun of him, or told him to not be nasty to their homeroom teacher Mrs Cooper.

He didn't know why they all liked the nasty woman so much. She should treat him better than the others, his Mum and Dad also told him that. And he didn't even have his cousin to beat to make him feel better. Harry was in another class and out of his reach all the time at school. And when he had tried to show how much better he was during break time, the teachers had stopped him again. He knew that Harry was a freak, his parents said that all the time, why didn't the teachers see it too?

But the worst part about school was that the food sucked. Most of it was what his Dad called rabbit food; vegetables, fruit and that darker bread with corn in it. Not like the nice white bread his Mum always bought. Not to mention that there were no things like jam, peanut butter or hazelnut-spread. Nothing sweet like he knew it. No bacon or eggs either. Only the dark bread with salad, cucumber, tomatoes and cheese, turkey breast or ham on it. Sometimes cooked eggs or tuna as well, but those weren't that common. It was all so boring. But as there was nothing else he could eat, he had to eat it.

The parents had been told that the school would take care of procuring lunch for the students and that they didn't have to give them lunch boxes. On top of that, sweets of all kinds were forbidden at school, the closest to anything sweet was the chocolate milk that was given out for breakfast. And he only got one bottle of it. When he had tried to take somebody else's because he wanted more, the teacher had forbidden it and made him stand in the corner again after he threw a tantrum. It still didn't get him what he wanted. He really didn't understand why. Whenever he threw a tantrum at home his Mum would do whatever he wanted or in case that he should do something that he didn't want she would make Harry do it. It just wasn't fair.

* * *

**Okay, that's the next chapter done. Till next time.**


	4. Problems

**Hi, everybody, thanks for all your reviews and the many views for the story. Now enjoy chapter 4.**

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**Problems**

Howard Fitz was really annoyed by now. This was the second time Jane had massively complained about Dudley Dursley. The boy was a true terror. He really wasn't mature enough to be put into a class with other children and the first-years' lessons were really tame compared to the higher years' classes. The children still got to play a lot and learning was mostly done in a fun way. But sending the boy back to nursery school also wasn't a real option. He had read through the reports and wasn't pleased at all about the deficits the child had. His parents really did a bad job raising him properly. The boy didn't know what limits were and had never been told 'no' in his whole life it seemed. The other children in his class had started to fear his tantrums because he tended to lash out and hurt them.

Seemingly that behaviour pleased the boy and he didn't care about his teacher telling him off all the time. If nothing changed he would have to have a serious discussion with the boy's parents. This couldn't go on. Just why the boy was like that he couldn't fathom. His cousin Harry was a really nice child. While he wasn't as much of a perfect child as in the beginning, he had relaxed some, he would never hurt anybody intentionally and was always trying to be nice to others. Harry made mistakes, but they weren't meant to harm others and he always massively apologised for them as if he feared to be punished for little things like accidentally breaking a glass or bumping into one of the other children while playing.

This really looked like something was really wrong at the Dursley home. Perhaps he could have Keith investigate discretely. He lived in the same street after all. There was simply no harmless reason that two boys from the same family were so different in everything. Not to mention their looks. Harry was very small for his age and just not underweight as the school nurse had called it. Keith had got instructions what to look out for when Harry chose his breakfast and lunch. The boy tended to eat portions that were too small for his age. It was getting better, but it also indicated that he wasn't used to getting properly sized meals. Which could be because his cousin always took away his part of the food at home and wasn't told off for it. Which would fit with Dudley's behaviour in Jane's class.

Dudley was completely overweight. How any responsible parent could feed a child so much that it looked like that boy was beyond him. Sure, children that were a bit pudgy were normal, that got better once they got to play with other children more, which was made sure of here at school. There were reasons for putting many hours of PE on the timetable for the first-years. First it kept the children happy and balanced and secondly it helped them to be fit. Well, if Dudley's behaviour didn't change significantly in one month he would call his parents in. This couldn't go on.

* * *

Harry was silently sitting at the kitchen table and doing his homework. Currently he was doing Maths. They had learned the numbers up to ten and their homework was colouring the blocks on the paper as many times as the number next to them showed. Of course they were all mixed up to make it more difficult, but he was sure he could manage. He knew that Dudley hadn't done his homework, but he didn't want to disappoint Mr Brackwood. He had told the whole class how important doing your homework in time was for learning and Harry had been told to do what his teacher told him.

He could see his aunt looking at him sometimes when she came into the kitchen to get snacks and sweet drinks for Dudley who was in the living room watching TV. He didn't know why she looked annoyed with him, but as far as he knew he hadn't done anything wrong. He hadn't asked any questions, had done the chores she had given him before starting his homework, and he made really sure to not let any colour get onto anything but his homework sheet. Finally he was done and smiled. He put his paper into the notebook for Maths and into his backpack. Then he took out his alphabet tablet and the homework for English and started counting vowels. Their homework was looking at the words under the pictures and counting how many times the vowels A, E, I, O and U were used respectively.

The first picture was an elephant. There was one A and two E's in the word. The alphabet tablet he had had the vowels coloured in blue and the consonants in yellow. It was really easy to see which was which this way. There were ten pictures overall and he carefully wrote down how many vowels were in each one. Then he was done and put the paper into his English notebook and put that also back into his backpack. He was happy to have finished his homework for today. He took the backpack and carried it to his cupboard. Aunt Petunia didn't like when his school things lay around when he wasn't doing homework.

* * *

The next morning in class Harry couldn't find his finished homework. Where were the two papers? He looked everywhere, but he couldn't find them. He didn't understand why they weren't in his notebooks. Just when he was close to panicking, there was a knock on the door and Dudley's homeroom teacher came inside.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, but there seems to have been a confusion of homework sheets. Harry, your cousin had your homework sheets and handed them in, but we had completely different kinds of homework being in two classes. Do you by any chance have his?" She asked kindly, handing Harry his missing homework.

"No, I'm sorry, I only noticed that my homework had vanished and I didn't know how because I had put it into my notebooks and those into my backpack after I had done them yesterday. Thank you so much for bringing them back," Harry said smiling.

"You're welcome, Harry. Well, I will return to my class then. Sorry for disturbing you," She said addressing Keith.

"It's no problem, I am glad you found Harry's homework, he was really worried where it had gone to," Keith said, forcing himself to keep smiling to not startle the children.

It was clear to him what had happened. Dudley had thought that he could get out of doing his own homework by stealing his cousin's. He knew that Harry diligently did all his homework and would never simply skip doing it. Thankfully the two classes used different papers for homework, therefore that idea wouldn't work. But it was really concerning that Dudley's parents didn't stop something like that. It was only harming Dudley in the long run. From what he had found out so far, Harry was hated at his home. His aunt barely tolerated him and more than once he had heard her call Harry a freak. He could only assume that she had been Harry's mother's sister and been jealous or afraid of magic. Therefore she had declared it freakish and Harry, being a wizard himself, was also a freak. It was really unfair for the poor boy, but there was nothing he could really do.

They didn't really abuse Harry as far as he could see. Neglecting him definitely, but they didn't hit him or overworked him. While some tasks they set were above the level a five year old boy should do, they weren't so bad that there were action that could legally be taken. More than a warning wouldn't come out of it and that would only cause more hurt for Harry as his uncle was incapable of seeing reason and accepting any fault in himself or his family. No, if he wanted to do something, he would need to find a way that helped Harry, but didn't attack the Dursleys.

* * *

Jane was mirroring some of Keith's thoughts. She knew that Dudley hadn't simply erred in taking the wrong finished homework papers. Harry couldn't lie for the life of him and he had seriously thought that he had put his homework into the notebooks. And from there, more so as they had been in Harry's backpack, the homework papers could hardly find their way into Dudley's backpack if they hadn't been taken from Harry's things. It was really despicable how the boy now tried to take his cousin's work and pretend it to be his.

* * *

Dudley was not happy. He had thought his idea of making Harry's homework look like his would be a great one. He wouldn't get in trouble with his teacher and could still watch as much TV as he wanted to at home. Now he was told off again for trying to cheat and more so stealing his cousin's homework. He had even got detention over this. It was so unfair. He shouldn't have to work, that was something only his cousin had to do. Well, he would need a new idea. He would simply have to demand that Harry did his homework too. That way he could watch TV and still have his homework done. And the freak seemed to like doing homework, so it would be no problem.

* * *

Harry didn't know why his aunt had told him to do Dudley's homework as well as his. But the threat of not getting any dinner was making him comply. Well, the papers from Dudley's class weren't that hard to do. They were a bit different than his, but not more difficult. In English he had to connect the pictures of animals with the letter with which they began, in Maths he had to connect block figures with the numbers of how many blocks there were in them and for Science he had to get the leaves of three plants in his aunt's garden for him. His own homework was drawing a flower in his aunt's garden to the best of his ability and read one page in his reading book. He gave his aunt the finished homework for Dudley and then put his back into his backpack. He hoped that this wouldn't get him into trouble anymore.

* * *

For a while the practice of Harry doing Dudley's homework worked well for all those involved. It even had an unnoticed effect on Harry. By doing much more homework than the others his age, he learned more and better. He got a completely different understanding of the basics of his subjects. And he could only really do papers that didn't require writing a lot because then the teachers would notice that it wasn't Dudley's handwriting. Harry had a very neat handwriting by now, caused by a lot of practice, and Dudley's was untidy and difficult to read. And reading pages for the next class was also not possible to do as Harry was in a different class. As Aunt Petunia didn't like Harry having to hang around Dudley for long, she simply solved that problem by reading the pages out to him before he had to go to bed.

The problems started when the teachers became suspicious why Dudley wasn't getting any better at writing, calculating and reading. It was about six months into the year. Harry was really good by now reading full easy sentences and reading out a few of them in class. In fact Harry was among the top three students in his class in English, Maths and Science. He did fairly well in Music and Art and was energetic in PE. Dudley meanwhile was at the bottom of his class whenever he had to show anything that wasn't his prepared homework. He had no patience for art, in music he only created chaos and in his classes he wouldn't sit still for long periods of time. When he was asked to read out small passages in his reading book he stuttered through it, often confusing the words.

He could list the numbers from one to ten, but he still couldn't tell the whole alphabet by now. But one of the homework parts had been sorting cuts of the letters of the alphabet from a bag onto a coloured paper and stick them there with glue. Dudley's had been perfect and really neat. When Jane mentioned that to Keith and Karen, Keith wanted to see the papers that Dudley had handed in. After looking at ten of them in each class he was sure that they were Harry's work.

"This is Harry's work, I would bet. This is typical for his way of working. The boy is a perfectionist. Here, I have some of Harry's homework to compare it to. Look at the handwriting," Keith said and showed the two women Harry's file.

They looked over the papers and definitely they had been done by the same person. And nobody would say that Harry didn't know what had been covered this year, so he cheating wouldn't be a valid excuse. So probably the Dursleys had made Harry do his cousin's homework. That couldn't continue.

"What are we going to do?" Karen asked. "It's clear that the Dursleys must have told Harry to do his cousin's homework. Perhaps Harry even offered to help when Dudley had problems and then it ended in him doing all the work. Harry is nice enough to do that."

"I know, this is a problem. And from how unreasonable the Dursleys are confronting them on this would only end in Harry getting in trouble," Keith said sadly.

"We need to find a way to make them understand that this only hurts Dudley. He doesn't learn the basic things about reading and writing. They baby the boy so much that he is falling behind all of the other children in his class," Jane agreed. "But I also don't want Harry to pay for this. I remember too well how the Dursleys reacted when I told them that Dudley was bullying the other children in his class and on the playground. They steadfastly declared that Harry was the one at fault when he was nowhere near the place where I had caught Dudley and Piers tormenting Alicia and Nancy. Thankfully Howard knows what kind of boy Dudley is and didn't believe any of the Dursleys accusations."

Keith was thinking hard. It was clear that he needed to do something. The Dursleys would try to punish Harry for Dudley's wrongdoings. They would never blame their son for his faults that were caused by their unreasonable behaviour. But the teachers couldn't really take legal action. The Dursleys managed to keep up a normal façade in the neighbourhood and blamed everything that went wrong on Harry. And the idiots in the street even believed it. After all, Petunia and Vernon Dursley were respectable people that were burdened with their orphaned nephew. As if Harry could ever be a burden to anybody.

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**And done for this chapter, till next time.**


	5. Accidental Magic

**Hi, here is the next chapter. Hope you like it, enjoy.**

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**Accidental Magic**

Another problem concerning Harry appeared only a week later. Keith had been sick with a stomach flu and a substitute teacher had taken over his class. This one was thoroughly convinced of the lies that the Dursleys had spread about Harry as he was an old friend of Vernon. Keith had tried finding out why the whole neighbourhood believed the lies that the Dursleys told and he had been stumped so far. The people weren't necessarily spiteful, they were mostly well-educated and nearly all of them had a single parent working if they were families with children. He really didn't see any reason why people like that would think the worst of a small child that couldn't really do much harm.

He had asked around what Harry had supposedly done during the weekends, naming his reason for the inquiry that he didn't see any of the supposedly bad behaviour in his classes. He got to hear several stories about Harry taking away toys from Dudley, which Keith doubted to be true after having heard how Dudley behaved at school, how Harry was mean to other children, never did what his aunt or uncle told him and of course there was the argument how he looked like.

Keith truly wondered how people could be that blind. How would Harry be able to look like a child that was properly cared for when it was obvious that his clothes were all cast-offs from Dudley, which were several sizes too large and worn off, and when he was always only treated with contempt by his relatives. It was a nasty picture that he got and he was already working on plans how to help Harry.

If he was sure what kind of reason Professor Dumbledore had for placing Harry here he could plan better, but he would make do with what he could tell. The Dursleys didn't like having Harry in their house on bit, but they still kept him and didn't put him into an orphanage. From the things he had observed that had to mean that they got something out of it. Vernon and Petunia Dursley didn't do anything without profit. Petunia would have made a great Slytherin with her backstabbing ways. It had to be something massive if they tolerated a child that they clearly despised. Even if they didn't treat Harry well, they still kept him and made sure that he got a normal education. Thought that part was probably mostly due to not wanting to look unnormal to the neighbours.

Probably Dumbledore would be alerted if Harry left the area for too long. The school was a fifteen minutes' walk from Privet Drive away, so there had to be some leeway in the alarms. It was fairly reasonable to think that Harry didn't have to be at the Dursleys all around the clock and not every day. Otherwise school trips wouldn't work out and the vacations he knew that the Dursleys went on at least three times a year. Even if Harry had to stay with a babysitter, last time he thought it was the cat-loving Mrs Figg. So it couldn't be the house itself. How often did Harry need to return there to not have the alarm triggered? How much area was enclosed? If only he could ask somebody.

Now Tyler Mitchel, the substitute teacher, wasn't part of the normal staff at Stonewall Primary; he was part of a group of teachers that were sent all across England's south east area whenever another teacher fell ill. This way there was little cancelled classes, which was important as many parents were working during the hours the children were supposed to be at school and couldn't find other means to have somebody look after the children otherwise. So when Harry asked a question in class and seemed to not get it immediately, Tyler shouted at him. The result was him getting blue hair on his wig. The children had laughed about it, none of them liked their substitute teacher, but he dragged Harry to Howard's office, demanding that he was punished for making fun of a teacher.

Harry said over and over again that he had no idea why Mr Mitchel suddenly had blue hair and that he didn't do anything. Howard believed him, it wasn't like Harry to cause trouble, and he really saw no way how Harry could have suddenly changed the wig's colour to blue. Sadly for Harry his substitute teacher brought the matter to Uncle Vernon's attention and he shouted at Harry for half an hour straight to stop being freakish and to never again cause such an incident. Harry really didn't understand anything, but he was sent to his cupboard without dinner that day and the following days he also only got a small slice of bread and a glass of water.

* * *

Harry went to Keith when he was back and told him what had happened, hoping his teacher could explain it. Keith knew exactly what had happened, a bout of accidental magic. Now how could he explain it to Harry without frightening the boy? And what to do about his relatives? It was absolutely clear that they would always blame Harry for things he had no control over.

"I know what has happened, Harry, come with me, I will explain it somewhere where we can sit more comfortably," Keith said and Harry was glad that his teacher knew what was wrong.

He really didn't want to be bad, so if he knew what to do to avoid it that would be great. Harry was led to a sitting area at the side of the staff room. It was separated from the rest of the large room by a few bookcases. Currently only one other teacher was there and he was already packing his things. Keith asked Harry if he would like something to drink and Harry happily accepted the glass of orange juice. After he had taken some gulps he looked expectantly at his teacher. Keith had discretely set up a privacy charm to not be overheard.

"Alright, Harry, what I will tell you now will sound unbelievable, but it is the complete truth," Keith started.

Harry nodded. He knew his favourite teacher didn't lie.

"The reason that Mr Mitchel's wig was turned blue was a special power that you were born with, Harry, magic," Keith said.

"But Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia said that magic doesn't exist," Harry said confused.

"Oh, it does exist; it is just really well hidden from those that don't have it. There is a whole magical world hidden from normal people. All over our country there are witches, wizards, goblins, centaurs, unicorns and other magical beings that live hidden because they fear that if they were found those without magic would hurt them," Keith said, trying to find an explanation that the young boy could understand.

"But why?" Harry asked in wonder.

"Because it has happened in the past, Harry. Humans fear what they don't understand. Like somebody being afraid in the dark because they can't see things that make noises, or others that are afraid of spiders," Keith explained.

Harry could understand that. He always had to kill the spiders in the house because Aunt Petunia was afraid of them. So if magicals feared that they would be killed like spiders it was understandable that they were hidden.

"Okay, I understand that," Harry said to his smiling teacher. "But why do I have magic then?"

"Because your Mum and Dad were a witch and a wizard too, Harry," Keith said. "I am one myself and I have met them a bit when we went to Hogwarts, a magical school up in Scotland. The school writes all witches and wizards that can go there a letter when they turn eleven and invites them to learn how to use their magic. And when your parents are magical, you are normally magical too."

"So your parents are also magical? And you knew my parents? How were they? What did they like? Did they love me?" Harry asked excitedly like only a small child could fire questions.

"No, my parents are not magical, I am what people call a muggleborn wizard; that means that I am the first in my family to have magic," Keith answered. "Your Mum was a muggleborn witch. I didn't know them well, but they were both very popular in their year. And I'm absolutely sure that they loved you very much."

Harry beamed at the last part before remembering why they were here. It was hard to not bombard Keith with more questions, but he needed to know more about what had happened. After all, he didn't want to spend a week in the cupboard again.

"Oh, that's strange. So why did I suddenly use magic to make Mr Mitchel's hair blue? That never happened before," Harry asked frowning.

"It's called accidental magic and it happens when a young witch or wizard is feeling especially strong emotions. Like being really scared, really angry or also really happy. Though the last one is fairly rare. We need to keep you being able to use magic a secret from everybody else, Harry," Keith said.

"Okay. But how do I do that? I didn't want to turn Mr Mitchel's hair blue either," Harry asked confused tilting his head a bit.

"Well, the easiest way is by trying to not get really angry. I can help you by teaching you some techniques that will help you to keep calm and concentrated. Normally being startled shouldn't cause accidental magic, so only really dangerous situations should make you use magic and in those cases it would probably be to your best," Keith answered.

"I don't think Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia will like me getting extra lessons. They already hate that I am being praised at school and Dudley isn't," Harry sadly said looking down at his feet.

Keith knew that the small boy needed help and he had at least one idea that wouldn't trigger any alarms, but would make his life much easier than before. It would have to do until he could find a better way. Thankfully this wouldn't go against the Statute of Secrecy and the Laws against muggle baiting.

"I know and I think that I have found a solution for the problem with your relatives. I will place a charm on you that will let them ignore you. It is called a notice-me-not charm. I will set the spell that only the Dursleys won't notice you consciously. You will still live there, but they will not notice you except you make them notice you, like when you are really sick and need a doctor," Keith said.

"Uh, I have never been to a doctor, Mr Brackwood," Harry said looking down again. "The school nurse was the only one to give me a look over and after Dudley told about it at home Aunt Petunia was really angry for some reason."

Keith knew why that was the case. The school had noticed signs of neglect with Harry and had written a letter to the Dursleys to change that or face consequences. Next to that the letter about Dudley being way overweight and pointing out health risks for his future couldn't have gone over well with them.

"Well, in that case, you can always come to me. I live only a few houses down the street from your home. I live at Number Fourteen Privet Drive. So if you ever need help, just come to me," Keith offered.

"Really? You would do that?" Harry asked surprised with his eyes being impossibly large.

"Of course I would, Harry," Keith stated seeing that the little boy was really happy about that.

"Could you, uhm, could you also perhaps…tell me…only if it isn't…too much trouble…" Harry tried asking very quietly.

"What Harry?" Keith asked kindly.

"You said you knew my parents a little, could you tell me about them? Aunt Petunia never tells me anything and shouts at me if I ask." Harry blurted out.

"Of course. If you want to, you can come over on Saturday morning and I will tell you more about them, the little that I know, and the magical world," Keith offered.

"Thank you so much! I promise I won't be a burden!" Harry said excitedly.

"You could never be a burden, Harry, forget what your aunt and uncle told you. I think they either fear magic or are jealous. I think your aunt was your Mum's sister. So probably one of the two is true and she started hating magic and anybody who has it because of that. The charm will make things better," Keith assured him.

Harry nodded happily. While being completely ignored by his relatives wasn't perfect, he liked that better than being shouted at or punished.

* * *

Keith went with Harry to his home as he needed to also ward his bedroom with the notice-me-not-charm so that the Dursleys wouldn't accidentally stumble into it. He used the Sunday instead of the planned Saturday to come over as Harry said that the Dursleys normally went on trips with Dudley then and he was left at Mrs Figg's. A simple confusion charm for her to forget that Harry was supposed to be with her that day allowed Keith to be let into the house by Harry who had simply waited until his relatives left. He really liked the charm already.

Though when Keith asked Harry to show him his bedroom he was aghast finding out that it was the cupboard under the stairs. How could anybody treat a child like that? It had to end. He asked if there were any free rooms in the house as he didn't want to use too much magic around here, knowing that the Ministry would keep a close eye onto Harry's location. A notice-me-not-charm was just lowly enough in its level to not arouse suspicion. Harry told him that the rooms upstairs were used as his aunt and uncle's bedroom, Dudley's bedroom, the guestroom and Dudley's second bedroom. Keith seethed; of course the bloody spoiled brat had two rooms while Harry had to sleep in a cupboard. Well, no longer.

He walked upstairs and looked through the so-called second bedroom. It was small, but not too small for a child and definitely much better than the cupboard. If he wasn't so sure that somebody would notice if Harry moved out of the house, he would relocate the boy to his house and be done with it. He would be much better suited to raise a magical child, but the authorities would never let him gain guardianship over Harry as he wasn't related to him. It would also call wizards onto the scene and that would be a real problem. No, anonymity was Harry's best protection right now, whoever placed him into the muggle world must have intended for that. Most wizards that followed Voldemort would never be able to locate Harry without a massive coincidence.

So he set to cleaning the room of all the broken things with Harry's help. The boy knew where his aunt kept the big bags for rubbish and they put all broken things into them. How one child could break so many toys he couldn't understand. He took a few things he saw Harry look at longingly, firmly intending to repair them later when he was farther away to not call too much attention onto this place. One notice-me-not-charm performed inside the house could be chalked up as being done by Harry accidentally. That had happened with other children before.

But many _reparo_ spells would be noticed. He knew that he didn't have the trace on him, but he would bet that the Ministry set up some special observing charms to have a closer watch over Harry. It would be interesting to basically raise the boy from now on and from a few houses down the street, but really, he probably only had to sleep here. He sadly was no expert on wards, and there had to be some to protect Harry; that was an area that only purebloods and halfbloods from old houses that did business in that area learned. But with Harry having to go to school regularly, the wards couldn't require for him to be there the whole day or even every day as vacations and class trips had to be considered.

Keith placed the bags with the broken toys onto the attic of the house. After that he and Harry cleaned the room thoroughly as well as possible. The bed was alright; thankfully the mattress wasn't too bended. Even a fat child couldn't wear it down too quickly with the mattresses normally being made to endure adults sleeping on them. And this was only a second bedroom, so it was rarely used. Finding a proper blanket and some cushions wasn't hard as they were stored on the attic as well for 'Aunt Marge's visits' as Harry told Keith. So Harry's room got proper bedding and the things that Dudley hadn't broken, but never used, like books, were left inside. The room was only a rubbish deposit as Dudley didn't want to part with the things he had broken for some reason, even if he never used them again anyway.

They needed two hours to get everything done, but in the end they were happy with the result. The room would let Harry take refuge and sleep whenever he was at his relatives' house.

* * *

It was interesting to watch how the Dursleys were a bit confused after one week of the charms being active. Petunia seemed to miss something when she did the chores around the house, Vernon missed a target to unload his anger on and Dudley didn't know where to put his broken things anymore as far as Harry told Keith. Not to mention that Petunia had stopped spreading lies about Harry in the neighbourhood. Now the only source of information about the boy was Keith as his homeroom teacher and when he was asked he answered truthfully that Harry was a good boy and a really attentive student. Slowly the perception of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood changed. Harry wasn't seen as a delinquent anymore after six months and his image slowly improved.

Harry either went home after school and kept to his new bedroom to do his homework or went over to Keith when he didn't have to stay at school longer. And now he only had to do his own homework and not Dudley's as well. This helped him with managing to play with his friends from his class. Mostly he went over to Jeremy's house, but sometimes also to Kate's. Those two sat at the same table as him in class together with Michael, but he didn't live close by, so Harry couldn't go over to play with him. Sometimes he arranged to meet more friends on the playground. Those were great as they played games that needed more players, like cops and robbers. It was one of Harry's favourites because he was really fast and often could catch the others.

Dudley now had problems at school that couldn't be hushed up. He didn't really remember how he had done his homework before, but he couldn't tell anybody else to do it anymore. So he was forced to either endure the scolding he got when he didn't have his homework or unwillingly do it himself. To his anger his parents had been called in and been told that they were harming Dudley's education by not having him do his own homework. They showed them how much Dudley was already falling behind the other children in his class and if they didn't want him to have to do the year again, they should make Dudley do his own work and learn the things they covered during the year.

Petunia had been really angry about that, but she really couldn't do anything about it. And something was missing as well, something that had helped her push acknowledging her son's failures aside. The notice-me-not-charm worked similarly to a memory charm, only that they still had the memories of Harry living in the house; they just pushed them back in their minds. One single bit of information was ignored by those keyed into the charm. It was really simple. Everybody with the surname Dursley would ignore Harry even if he was in the same room. It had helped Harry to get away with watching the TV programs that the other children in his class always talked about as Dudley regularly watched them. Harry only had to sit on the floor where his aunt and uncle didn't walk along and keep silent to not have any problems.

* * *

Keith used the Saturdays to teach Harry meditation. It helped him relax and learn to not let his emotions rule him. It was the best way to avoid having many bouts of accidental magic. Harry agreed that it wouldn't be smart to let non-magical people know about his abilities. They would only look at him strangely. As the main sources for his distress and possible anger didn't notice him anymore, he was able to easily learn the basics. Keith had also taken Harry clothes shopping in London one weekend. Now Harry had fitting clothes for the first time he could remember. Keith had made sure that Harry couldn't be recognised before taking him for a visit at Gringotts. He needed to know if there was any kind of stipend that he could use to pay for Harry's needs.

Thankfully the goblins were known for their confidentiality in doing business and so after Harry gave a small blood sample, he didn't like having his finger pricked with a sharp knife at all, but was brave through it, they told Keith what he needed to know. While there wasn't a direct stipend, the Potters had set up a vault for Harry's needs shortly after he had been born. It was a trust vault and each month a hundred galleons were transferred there from the family vault. Keith only took enough money and exchanged it for pounds to buy Harry a complete wardrobe and some more books that Harry wanted. The one toy Harry wanted was a stuffed black and white husky. Well, in Keith's eyes each child deserved a plushy to cuddle with at night. Harry still had some problems voicing his wishes, but he got better. It would take time to get him over the trained behaviour he had taken up thanks to his relatives.

As they had already been in London, Keith showed Harry a few sites like the Big Ben and the Thames River. More would be too much for the child to take in after shopping. They ate in a restaurant and then returned to Little Whinging. As it had been quite late Harry spent that night in Keith's guest room before returning to his home after breakfast was over there. When the Dursleys went on their trip, Harry returned and put his clothes into his cupboard in his room and the books onto his shelves. His husky was placed onto his bed before Harry took out his new crayons and started drawing a picture of Big Ben.

* * *

**So, this is the start of Keith using some magic to help Harry. More will come in the future. Till next time.**


	6. Sports Day

**Hi, another chapter for this story, enjoy.**

* * *

**Sports Day**

(Information: I assume that there are six years of primary school if I count that children start school at five and switch to secondary school at eleven. It that's wrong, sorry, but for this part I'll go with it)

* * *

The staff of the primary school had a meeting to plan the activities of the annual sports day. All years would be participating and the results would be presented on big boards all over the school. In previous years the students developed quite the competitive streak to make their class win their year's competition. There were a lot of different kinds of competitions, from traditional track and field athletics to sports played in groups like football. Though for the sports day the school normally had a smaller version played, four-corners-football. It allowed to have the students play on two goals each. Each goal was an element taken from a gymnastic apparatus. And with the young children it was a hit as they could shoot at the goal much more often than in traditional football.

"Alright, we need to organise who will oversee which activity. Like last year, each year will have to participate in six activities all over the day. We will rotate the years through those kinds of activities that all years are going to do, the three sports that are different for the years will have the same slots in the schedule. As you know we decided to let the years four to six do swimming and basketball and the years one to three dodge ball and water run. All years will do track and field athletics, four corner football, rounders and gymnastics," Howard listed. "We have the support from the swimming hall to help observe the older students when they do their tasks and Jake and Karen have volunteered to handle instructing the students there."

"I would like to take basketball," Mike Abbler, the homeroom teacher of the 3-C offered.

"I'll help him," Rebecca Miller, one of the music teachers without an own class this year spoke up.

"Thanks Rebecca and Mike," Howard replied and wrote their names behind the basketball space.

After a while they had arranged for all teachers except the homeroom teachers of the first years, which would need to accompany their classes around the activities this year to show them how things were done, to monitor one activity or work on overall organisation.

The sports day was loved by nearly all students and it was an honoured tradition of Stonewall Primary School. One day each year was set aside for this and free of classes. The swimming hall's personnel was also involved as they would help out watching over the children that did the swimming task. Contrary to some sports activities where all students had to compete in all disciplines, the sports day worked in a way that students had to choose three of the activities that their year had to do and then participate to win for their class. Of course the other students that didn't do a certain activity normally attended as well and cheered those participating on.

* * *

Keith looked over his students. They were all already changed into their normal sportswear with a track suit over them to not become cold while they were waiting for their turns.

"Good morning everyone," Keith greeted them all and got a chorus of greetings back. "Today, as I told you for the last two weeks, our school has its annual sports day. We have decided who will participate in which sports and I want you to simply do your best. To me it doesn't matter if you win all your activities, but that you have fun and show that you play fair. If you manage to win a category for our class, I'll be of course immensely proud of you."

The children smiled happily. Some had been a bit nervous about competing with other classes.

"Good, our schedule for today is as follows," Keith took out a big paperback tablet and held it out in front of the class. "We will start with the track and field athletics at eight on the athletic ground next to the school. As you know ten of you will participate in ball throwing, long jump and sprinting for 50 metres. Now I want those ten to raise their hands."

Keith made sure that the chosen ten knew that they were meant. With first-years you had to repeatedly remind them of some things to ensure that everything went well.

"Great, you all remembered what you decided to do. Now at nine we will switch over into the gymnastic hall for the gymnastics. There you'll have to do leap-frog and floor exercises. You remember the ones that we practiced?" He got a chorus of yes's from the children. "That's great. Next up is still in the gymnastic halls, but another part. Four-corner-football will be played next against another of the first-year classes at a time. Each game will last for ten minutes. After a game you'll get five minutes break before the next one will start. Each class had two teams of five persons and the part of the gymnastics hall that is used for the four-corners-football will hold two games at the same time. Each team will play twice and the results of both teams are added for the total result of the class."

The children nodded. They had heard that part before.

"Now the third activity at eleven is dodge ball, which is on the play grounds. You know the fields," Keith said and all children nodded as the played dodge ball regularly in PE. "At twelve we will go over to play rounders. For both dodge ball and rounders the allowed time per game is fifteen minutes. The last activity for us is the water run at one in the afternoon. After that the total results of each class will be put together to see which class of each year performed best. The victory ceremony is set for half past two and your parents will probably be there to watch."

The parents had of course been informed about the sports day to make sure they knew that the children would be at school longer than normally. Especially the younger years. During the activities parents were allowed to watch from the side-lines as well if they wished to. Snacks and drinks were provided by the school again to make sure that no child had to go hungry or thirsty during the day. The parents could only communicate with the children after all activities were done though. The school had had bad experiences with overly competitive parents otherwise, which took away the fun for the children.

* * *

Dudley Dursley didn't like the thought of the sports day. While his Mum had promised she would be there to cheer for him, he wouldn't get to talk to her because of the stupid rules. She would also not be able to make sure that the other children let him win. And the activities he was signed up for were so stupid. Each child in his class had to do three things. And you had to follow those stupid rules. You weren't allowed to push your opponent down in football when you couldn't get the ball, you couldn't hit other children in any kind of sport and you had to wait for your turn in others. He would be on one of the four-corner-football teams, play dodge ball and the water run. The only one he liked a bit was football. He wasn't good at dodging at doge ball and his ability to catch a ball wasn't good either. But at least he could throw the ball hard on other children, which was why he had decided to do that one.

His other classmates were really excited about the sports day. The only good part about it was that he wouldn't have to be in class and sit through boring lectures. His parents had been called in by his homeroom teacher, Mrs Cooper, and had been told that he was failing his classes and that he needed to work more to not have to repeat his first year at school. Of course his parents had rightfully been outraged at the accusation, but Mrs Cooper just had to show them the class tests that he had done. He hadn't passed even one of them. Now his Mum sat him down an hour each day and explained to him how addition and subtraction worked and made him read some pages in his reading book.

He hated that he had to do that instead of being allowed to watch TV. He also saw that his Mum would have allowed it, but she said that he couldn't fail his first year because the neighbours would talk badly about their family. So he grudgingly did the work. After all, at least he got chocolate pudding each time after he had done one of their study hours. That was the only thing that made it bearable. After all, he didn't get any sweets at school. His Mum was clearly the better teacher if she knew that you learned better with sweets.

* * *

Harry looked around excitedly. He had been looking forward to the sports day a lot. He was on the teams for rounders, gymnastics and track and field athletics. He hoped to do well to make Keith proud of him. During the last three months he had taken to only go by what his homeroom teacher thought was right to do and not what his aunt and uncle said was right. After all, they didn't notice him anymore thanks to the spell Keith had used and Keith had said that they were wrong with what they had told him before that. Keith had told him to call him by his given name when they weren't in class shortly after he had put the spell on him. Harry liked that. He thought that Keith was like a nice kind of uncle that looked out for him.

It was also great that he now had an adult that answered all of the questions he had and helped him when he had a problem. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had never done that for him. They had always shouted at him when he asked a question. Keith just smiled and patiently explained what he wanted to know. He also played with him when he had the time.

Harry was happy that he would get to be among the first group that would do an activity. He was quite fast and could jump among the farthest of his class, which was why he was put on the team for track and field athletics with his friends Jack, Anne and Peter. He also loved his new blue track suit which he wore over his shorts and t-shirt. Keith had taken him to the mall in Greater Whinging to shop for more clothes as he had grown a bit since he had got some clothes in London. While Harry didn't want to be a bother, Keith hadn't been angry, just told him that it was good that he grew a lot.

* * *

Keith watched how his students listened to Eric and Claire explaining the order in which they would have to do the three parts of the track and field athletics. He hoped that Harry would do well and simply have fun. The boy simply grew on you when you got to spend as much time with him as Keith did. By now he sometimes considered Harry his son, even if he knew he should keep a little more distance as a teacher. But honestly, whom else did Harry have? And the boy needed a parental figure in his life.

The other teachers knew about how Keith had taken over basically raising the boy after his aunt and uncle seemed to have decided that completely ignoring the boy was best. While none of them understood what had happened, they were relieved that at least Harry wasn't alone with this new kind of neglect. And if his homeroom teacher, who lived in his neighbourhood, decided to provide the boy with some support and stability that his relatives weren't willing to give him, so be it. The most important part was the well-being of the child. And they all saw how much Harry bloomed after Keith had started looking after him more.

The thirty children that were part of this activity were splitting up in three groups. One group headed over to the long jump pit, one to the sprinting line and one to the area where the throwing balls were kept. As the children were still very young, most still five years old with some being six as they'd had their birthdays since the start of the school year, there wasn't much to be expected in terms of distance. Harry was with the runners right now. Five children at a time would run the fifty metres and their time would be noted by the teachers manning the stop watches. The school didn't have the money to invest in high tech equipment and for primary school children common stop watches would do perfectly.

The first group was told to take position at the starting line. Keith saw that Harry stood behind them with Emily from his class, two children from Jane's class and one from Karen's class. In the first group there was one child from his class, Elisabeth Holmes, and Keith hoped she would do well. The starting signal was given and all five children ran as fast as they could towards the finish line. Emily came in third in her group. The next line was called up and Keith concentrated on Harry. When the signal was given, the children shot off and Harry quickly took the lead and didn't give it up till the end. His classmates cheered for that small victory.

Harry beamed at getting congratulations from his friends and looked at him once he got a moment of a break. Keith smiled and nodded towards Harry. The smile on the boy's face and the happiness in his eyes were warming his heart.

* * *

Keith watched his class playing dodge ball against the 1-B. So far his children had lost two of the nine people on the field while the other team lost three. The others in the classes cheered the players on. This was something he liked seeing. The children while being in a competitive environment, had fun and the class held together, cheering for each other during competitions even if the children watching weren't active at the time. He knew that his class had won the track and field athletics and had come in second at gymnastics where Karen's 1-B took the first rank. This was the second game of the dodge ball games, the first had been the 1-A versus the 1-B, which the 1-A had won with one person more on the field when the time was called.

Just now Richard had managed to catch the throw from one girl in Karen's class and hit the girl that had thrown the ball, which forced her to leave the field. His other students cheered for that success loudly. They really wanted to win the overall competition of their age group. He planned to pay for ice cream for the whole class no matter which place they achieved. For him it was just important that the children got to move around and have fun together. Even if winning would be nice, the children were first-years and you couldn't really expect too much from them.

* * *

Petunia Dursley watched how her son performed in the first activity he was involved in at the sports day. It was the second game of his class, the one against the 1-C. She thought she should remember something about the 1-C but shoved the thought back in her mind. Of course her boy would do great, she was convinced of that. There was no better boy than her Dudley. She disliked that she wasn't allowed to speak to him until the final ceremony though. Who did those teachers think they were? She was his mother and it was her right to talk to her son. But other parents that she had complained to just shrugged and said that the teachers had set up the rule for a good reason. After all, they could have forbidden the parents to watch at all as it was a school activity.

At least she saw that while Dudley had been hit by an unfair shot first of his team, he managed to hit others from the side lines. He was doing so well in that game, it made her proud. She didn't notice other parents' head being shaken at her gushing over her son and the clear ignorance of the boy's attitude problems. She even complained when Dudley was told off for not following the rules by grabbing the ball when it was still inside the field of the other team. Many of them had heard from their children how Dudley Dursley wasn't a nice boy, but seeing things for themselves they vowed to stay away from the Dursleys.

* * *

Harry watched how the other two classes had their first game or rounders. It was one of his favourite games that they got to play in PE. Throwing a ball as far as you could and then running to a station on the way as fast as you could before the opposite team could secure the ball and put it into the ring. If you didn't stand at a station then you were burned ad had to return to the starting line. His fast running and fairly good throwing abilities were great for this. By now four activities were done and after rounders there was only the water run left. So far his class had won track and field athletics and dodge ball, was second in gymnastics and third in four-corner-football, which the 1-B had won. The 1-A hadn't won any activities yet, but had come in second at dodge ball and four-corner-football.

Harry knew that watching the other two teams was good as you could say who was good at running and throwing by simply watching. It was something he had learned in PE. In games like dodge ball and rounders knowing how others played could be as helpful as being good yourself. After all, you couldn't win such a game on your own. The 1-A was good at this game. He was just glad that Dudley was in all the other activities than the ones he did. It wouldn't have been easy to play against his cousin when he couldn't really notice him thanks to the charm that protected Harry.

Finally it was time for his class to start, their first game was against the 1-A which had won the first game. Harry was third in line. They had planned a simple strategy to get as many points as they could. They had three members of their team that were great at running and throwing the ball far. Daniel, Stephen and Harry himself. They were third, sixth and tenth in the line. They would try to throw well enough to get those that were standing at previous stations over the finish line next to running around the course in one go. That would bring two extra points after all. First of their class to go was Rebecca and while she couldn't throw far, she could run fast. Once the teacher overseeing the game whistled to start, Rebecca threw the ball as far to the left as she could, along the end of the field where they were starting and ran to the station. She reached the second one before she stopped, seeing that the ball had been caught and was about to be put into the ring.

Jake, who was second, got to the first station while Rebecca reached the third thanks to his throw. Then it was Harry's turn. He put as much strength as he had into his throw and was happy to see that it flew over all of the other team's players to the far off side of the field. He started sprinting around the course, knowing that he had a good chance to reach the finish line in one go as the others hadn't expected him to throw that far and had to run all over the field to catch up to the ball. Harry was just over the finish line when the ball was thrown back to the middle of the field and a bit later it was put into the ring by a scowling Becky Tanner, who manned the ring for her team. Rebecca and Jake had managed to get to the finish line as well complimented Harry while they took back their positions in the line.

They all heard their classmates cheer for the great start into the game.

* * *

It was the end of a long and exciting day for the students of Stonewall Primary. The sports day was over and the ceremony to honour the victors was about to start. Once all activities had finished at two in the afternoon there had been a buffet with food and drinks which they all happily went to. All the sports had left them hungry. Now that the games and sports were over they could sit with their parents and friends and simply talk about the day and how they had done in the different activities.

Harry sat with his friends and their parents. While some of their parents looked strangely that he didn't sit with his relatives, they also knew that Harry wasn't well-liked by them. Not to mention that their children had invited Harry over a few times and he had always been unfailingly polite and nice. And seeing how Petunia Dursley mollycoddled her son right now at another table made them glad that Harry was a normal boy and not like his spoiled cousin. The dishes to choose from were cutlets, sausages or rissoles with potato salad and green salad being the side dishes. For drinks there were water, orange juice and apple juice.

At half past two the children got sorted back into their classes by their homeroom teachers and looked expectantly at the headmaster to announce the winners of each year.

"This has been a great day and I'm very happy that our sports day went without any serious injuries and that you all played fair in the games. I know that you're all waiting for the final placements now. We'll begin with the first years," Howard said. "Please stay all until the last results are announced, we have arranged for class photos to be taken in the end, which you can all buy in a week as a keepsake of this day. Now let's start. The third place of the first-year group belongs to the 1-A."

The class got applause from the others and they all got a small bronze-coloured ribbon for their effort.

"The second place goes to the 1-B," Howard continued and this set off the cheering of the 1-C that had won in their age group. "I guess the 1-C knows that they've won first place," he added chuckling.

First the 1-B got silver ribbons and then the 1-C got their gold ribbons.

It continued until the sixth-years were done and the photographers called all classes up one after another and the children with their homeroom teachers posed for the photos. It took a while, but then they were done for the day and could go home. Keith took Harry aside and told him to go to his house and that they would have a small celebration once he would return in an hour or so as he still needed to take care of a few things. Harry nodded happily and took his sports bag before starting the way home alongside two of his friends and their parents. He didn't notice the suspicious looks that his aunt got for ushering his cousin into her car and driving off without even having looked at him.

* * *

**Finished. Next chapter will have a small time skip. Till then.**


	7. Growth

**Hi everybody, here is the next update for this story. Happy reading.**

* * *

**Growth**

**Time Skip Harry age eight**

Harry read his report card happily. He had got A's in all of his classes except Art, there he had got a B. He was incredibly proud at this. He could see that his teacher / surrogate father also gave him a proud smile. Ever since he had found out about being a wizard, Keith had taken over more and more the job of raising Harry. While Harry still officially lived at Number Four Privet Drive, he spent most of his time at Number Fourteen. He even had his own room there. That room was decorated how Harry liked it and there he stored most of his precious things. He knew that thanks to the notice-me-not charm his things were safe in the bedroom, but there was still some fear that the charm might stop working suddenly and his treasures could be destroyed by Dudley or his aunt and uncle.

Harry didn't want to risk that. His fear of losing the things he finally had went so far that Keith procured a magical backpack in Diagon Alley that let you shrink the things you put inside. That way Harry could always carry his most precious things like his husky plushy Blacky and his self-drawn pictures around with him. The other things in the room could be replaced, but those not. Keith was more than happy to do that small thing for Harry. The boy gave so much and asked for so little in return. He really wished that he could adopt Harry. He had grown to see him as a surrogate son.

Keith was in a relationship with another muggleborn witch right now that had left the wizarding world thanks to all the stones that were put in her way. Sometimes he had the feeling that those muggleborn witches that didn't mind staying at home to mind their children weren't that bad off in the wizarding world as the others. But he could understand that many witches were repulsed by the thought of being reduced to housewives and mothers, when they were as talented as their male and pureblood counterparts in the subjects that they needed for the careers they wanted to pursue. It was a sad fact that many only saw muggleborns as ways to bring fresh and hopefully powerful blood into the old lines. Well, for those lines that didn't buy into the pureblood supremacy nonsense.

Keith was carefully telling Harry the truth about the discrimination in the wizarding world without making the boy totally resent magic. Keith managed to point out the difference between the mistakes and misdoings of a few powerful and rich people and blaming a whole people. Keith knew that Harry could possibly bring some change about with his heritage and his status as the Boy-Who-lived, but he wouldn't pressure Harry into it. Harry was eight years old right now and the only thing he should be worried about was school, his friends and having fun.

Jessica, Keith's girlfriend, was also very taken by Harry's personality. She fully supported Keith in making sure that Harry had a happy childhood. The two planned trips for the weekends as a family, made sure that Harry got all his shots, both magical and muggle and overall treated Harry like a normal boy.

* * *

Arabella Figg was smiling seeing little Harry Potter with his surrogate family. She had at first been concerned when Harry spent more and more time over at Keith Brackwood's house, but the boy had become happier with each day he got to spend in the company of the young teacher. She was confused why, whenever he was in company of one of the Dursleys, they behaved as if Harry didn't exist, but as it was only a massive improvement to the previous situation, she didn't mention it in her reports. She didn't agree with Albus leaving Harry at Petunia's. She had seen how she emotionally abused the poor child all those years. It was all well and good thinking that the blood wards that Albus put so much importance on would keep out You-Know-Who and his followers, but to let a child grow up properly you needed more than simply a place to sleep. You needed love and care and that was not given at the Dursleys.

She suspected that either Harry had, in a bout of accidental magic, made the Dursleys ignore him completely or that Keith had put a charm on him. She had noticed that he was a wizard when he had one day given Harry a clearly enchanted backpack for his things. From what she had overheard from the others in the neighbourhood over the years they first had wondered a bit why Petunia and Vernon didn't complain about Harry anymore, but thought that the boy must have got better after starting school. Once the focus about wrongdoing was off Harry, they noticed other things that had previously been overlooked. Now they were talking about what a terror Dudley was.

Really how Petunia could raise her son that badly was a mystery to her. At first she had thought that she spoiled Dudley too much to make him feel more loved than Harry, but now that Harry basically was only a thought in the back of her head, that should have ended. But she still catered to her son's every whim. The boy would never get anywhere with her behaviour. Next to that the obvious neglect towards Harry also was a large topic among the housewives of Privet Drive and the surrounding streets in the neighbourhood. It had started around the time of Harry's first Sports Day at school when parents had seen how Petunia had lavished attention on her son, but completely ignored her nephew. And leaving him behind to get home by himself while she drove her son home by car also didn't sit right with them.

Petunia was faced with a massive drop in invitations to tea parties, others not taking her invitations with different excuses about not having the time and neighbours now gossiping about her son's obvious problems with weight and behaviour. Parents of children in his class confronted her to get her son to leave their children alone and not hurt them or they would take action and involve the authorities. Petunia tried denying that her son was the aggressor in any of those situations, but the overwhelming mass of parents against her was hard to deny. Arabella knew that Petunia had complained to Vernon more than once, but in this situation, when all teachers had watched Dudley and had to intervene several times on the playground to stop him from beating other children that mocked him or which he felt mocked him, they had no ground to stand on.

She wondered if she should tell Keith the minimal amount of time that Harry had to spend at the Dursleys' house. After all, she could see how much Harry wished to fully live with Keith and Jessica. He still came over occasionally when Keith and Jessica were too busy and she enjoyed those visits a lot. Now that she didn't have to fear that the Dursleys would forbid Harry coming over she could be much nicer to him. Albus had told her that in order to keep the wards up when Harry went to Hogwarts he needed to stay there for three weeks each summer to have them fully powered. And the alarms that were built into the warding scheme would only be triggered if Harry left the area of three kilometres around Number Four for more than a week at a time. She could inform Albus about family vacations and nothing would happen. Probably for Harry it would be best if she worked something out with his new chosen family.

* * *

Keith was really surprised to get a phone call from Arabella Figg, the old woman that had babysat Harry whenever Petunia Dursley didn't want to take her nephew with her on trips or vacations and two or three times since he had taken over raising Harry. She told him that she wanted to talk to him about Harry and tell him some things that would be important for him to know. While he was slightly confused, he knew that she was no witch and so he agreed to meet with her the next Saturday afternoon. Harry would be over at the Cornell's for Jack's birthday party and they would be able to talk freely. He organised for some tea and cake and at three brought Harry over to the birthday party. Harry was greeted happily by his friend and handed over the wrapped present before running inside to play with the other children that were invited. He asked Jack's mother when he should get Harry and was told that they planned to end the party around eight after dinner.

Once back home he set everything up for tea and at half past three the bell rang. He went to the door and saw Mrs Figg standing there.

"Good afternoon, Mrs Figg, please come in," He said politely.

"Thank you, Mr Brackwood," She replied. "Thank you for seeing me."

"You're welcome," He said and led her into the living room and served tea and cake.

Mrs Figg complimented the decoration of the living room and he could see that her eyes often rested on the photos he and Jessica had put up with the two of them or the two of them with Harry when they were at the zoo or an amusement park. Had she not known the truth she would have said that Harry was Keith and Jessica's child. The room definitely looked as if Harry belonged here. She was really happy that Harry had found somebody to love him like he deserved. Finally Keith turned the conversation to the reason for her visit.

"Well, this might come as a surprise for you, but I know everything about Harry. You see, when Harry was placed with his aunt, I was asked to keep an eye on him and regularly report to Albus Dumbledore how Harry was doing. I am a squib and as I knew James and Lily, Harry's parents, fairly well, I accepted making sure that Harry was well. I noticed quickly that Harry wasn't loved at his Aunt's place, I noticed clear signs of neglect and verbal abuse, but Albus refused to act in any way. I hated that I couldn't do more, I couldn't even really give Harry a nice time whenever he was over at my place when I babysat him because then the Dursleys wouldn't have let him come over anymore," She explained.

"I wondered about that as Harry told me that these days it was much nicer to visit you than when he was sent there by his aunt. So you know that I am a wizard?" Keith asked.

"Yes, I deducted you had to be when you gave Harry that enchanted backpack for his precious things. That was a really nice thing to do. In the past, whenever Harry got a present, as small as it might have been, like a small plushy or a box of crayons in a marketing event, where things were given out to all children around, he never got to keep them or Dudley outright destroyed them. Petunia and Vernon never punished Dudley for anything. Harry was always the scapegoat for anything that didn't go to their liking," She explained.

"Did you tell Professor Dumbledore about me living here?" Keith asked concerned.

"No. I only found out about you being a wizard recently and I can tell that Harry loves you. It would be wrong to inform Albus and have him meddle with things again. He is delusional in thinking that Petunia would ever put her hatred of magic aside and treat her nephew like a second son. I don't want Harry to lose the happiness he has now if Albus tried to force him to stay over at the Dursleys more often again or even lift that effect that makes the Dursleys ignore Harry. He is better off with how things are right now. And if he did something that made you move away I don't think Harry would be able to take the loss of another parent. I guess you told him about magic?" She asked.

"Yes, after an accidental bout of magic against a substitute teacher, I explained to him how he was a wizard and how his parents were magical as well. I didn't really know James and Lily. I only told him what I had observed at school. I was five years above them and in Hufflepuff. Being muggleborn I didn't find a good job after graduation so I returned to the muggle world and caught up with my normal education. I got a degree and now I am a teacher. I haven't hidden the flaws of the magical world from Harry, but I also made him realise that not everybody was that discriminating against muggles and muggleborns. I simply don't want that he is too entranced by the great things the magical world has to offer to overlook the nasty sides." Keith said.

"That's probably a good thing. Have you told Harry how famous he is in the wizarding world?" She wanted to know.

"Not yet. He knows the truth about how James and Lily died; I didn't want him to continue believing the rubbish about the car crash that his aunt had made up, making his parents look like drunks that couldn't be bothered to stay with him. I didn't tell him yet how You-Know-Who tried to kill him too and vanished because the killing curse backfired for some reason. He is too young to comprehend that a whole people has placed him on an idiotic pedestal for something he can't even remember properly. I know that he sometimes has nightmares about that night, but he doesn't know what they mean and I won't tell him for as long as I can. He is a child and deserves to be protected," Keith stated.

"I'm glad he has you. If you want, I can tell him a bit more about James and Lily. I was part of the Order of the Phoenix, an organisation that fought against You-Know-Who and which they were also members of. Being a squib I obviously wasn't involved in fighting Death Eaters head on, but I collected information and helped brewing potions to treat the injured. Potions is one area of magic that squibs can use as the magic is in the ingredients and not in the person that does the brewing. You only need a miniscule amount for basic potions and I have that much," She said.

"I would appreciate if you could tell him a few more stories. I would also like it if you could help him understand wizarding culture a bit better. I don't want him to have to appear clueless when he goes to Hogwarts," Keith said.

"Of course, I can do that. What I also wanted to tell you is the way the blood wards around the area are working. In one of my talks with Albus I asked him how long Harry had to stay with his relatives over the summers, once he went to Hogwarts, so that they would be at full power. He told me they needed three weeks of his presence to be fully powered again. And any alarms that he has placed go off when Harry leaves the area three kilometres around number four for more than a week at a time and I don't inform him about vacations that the Dursleys go on. So in case you plan on taking Harry with you on vacation, I would appreciate being told that I can make sure that Albus stays away. While he isn't evil, he likes to manipulate circumstances to his liking and I don't want Harry to be caught up in his newest shrewd plan. It is necessary to make sure that Harry isn't found by Death Eaters, which the wards prevent perfectly, but there is no need to have Harry suffer under the Dursleys' care," Mrs Figg declared.

Keith nodded. This was valuable information that he had tried getting for some time. He and Jessica had discussed taking Harry with them on vacation on not only on weekend trips, but with how the wards were unpredictable it was too much of a risk in their eyes.

"I'm sure we can arrange that. It will also please Harry to no end that he doesn't have to stay over there more than those three weeks. I have placed a notice-me-not charm on him that is only keyed to anybody with the surname Dursley and have added a few more individuals that treated him badly, because they believed the lies the Dursleys spread about Harry, later on. Another notice-me-not charm is on the door to Harry's bedroom, which before was Dudley's second bedroom," Keith explained what he had done.

"That's simply brilliant. It isn't harmful at all and still does what needs to be done. Especially as through you Harry has an adult he can ask for help and who cares for him. And you wouldn't even get in trouble with the Ministry as you didn't do anything to bait the muggles," Mrs Figg praised.

"Thank you. And the one spell performed in the house was so low level that the Ministry wouldn't pick it up if they observed the area more closely which I fear they do," He said.

"Not really, Albus has refused to reveal where Harry is staying using the argument that too many supporters of You-Know-Who were never truly revealed and for Harry's protection his location needs to be kept secret. The Minister has tried getting the location for years, but Albus is stubborn," Mrs Figg corrected the assumption. "I think the trace monitors will only be set up once he is enrolled at Hogwarts and the address has to be registered with the Ministry as is the law."

"That's good to know. I don't want to direct attention to Harry. In that part the idea of hiding him in the muggle world was a good one. Just the family with whom he was placed is the worst kind imaginable. The things my colleague Jane, who is Dudley's homeroom teacher, tells me. The boy is in serious danger to fail this year and have to repeat it," Keith said.

"I didn't figure anything else. Dudley is rude, lazy and used to getting his will all the time. He never learned how to do anything himself. Petunia has him spoiled rotten. He will never amount to anything if she doesn't stop babying him and teach him right from wrong," She scoffed.

Keith had to agree with her. Thanks to Dudley's behaviour he had the biggest file of any child at the school. If he continued bullying the other students and got into major trouble one more time, he would get suspended for a week. And no private secondary school would take a boy who had a massively negative file. Not even Smeltings, the school Vernon Dursley boasted of having attended.

* * *

Harry enjoyed playing in the sea. Keith had explained to him that, thanks to Mrs Figg, they now knew how long he had to stay under the wards each year to keep them up and that alarms would only be triggered if he stayed away from the area the wards covered for longer than a week. This was really great. Keith's house was within the wards so Harry brought all of his things over to his bedroom at Keith's house. The room at the Dursleys was still kept under the notice-me-not charm to not have to explain things when the Dursleys suddenly regained their memories of the room and wondered why Dudley didn't use it anymore and where the repaired furniture came from.

They planned that Harry would power the wards up for a week on end during the nights and then return to Keith in January, March and November. During the colder months it wasn't that much of a sacrifice. The days he was at school most of the time anyway, so Harry didn't mind as much.

Right now, after telling Mrs Figg that they would spend two weeks in Italy for a family vacation, Keith, Jessica and Harry were residing in a four stars hotel at the Adriatic Sea. The city closest to their hotel was Ancona. They had all got language courses at Flourish & Blott's in Diagon Alley, an option Jessica had overheard two of her roommates in Ravenclaw talk about when she had been in fourth year. It was an option that wasn't revealed to muggleborns to disadvantage them more. After all, positions in the Department of International Magical Cooperation, including sought after ambassador positions, required knowledge of several languages and even wizards couldn't learn so many of those without using magical means. So for two galleons per language unit, which could be used by up to five people until it had to be replaced, you got perfect knowledge of the language you had chosen within two weeks. And that knowledge stayed with you all your life.

The patchwork family had chosen to get Italian for their vacation, French, because Jessica loved going to ski in the mountains of France, something her parents had done once a year during winter break, and German because if you bought three language packages you got a one galleon discount and knowing German couldn't hurt in Keith's opinion. You had to wait between the language uploads, as Jessica called them, for a week to let your mind get used to the huge amount of knowledge it suddenly got. They played it especially safe and waited for two weeks considering that Harry was still a child. They had travelled to Italy by plane and rented a car for trips around the country.

Harry had been fascinated by the sights in Rome, Venice and Naples. They had first gone to Rome, skipping a visit at the Vatican because none of them were really into the Christian religion, even if the churches were a sight to behold, and had instead used the time to see the other sights of the Eternal City. And there were so many. The Colosseum, Pantheon Temple, Trevi Fountain and so many more. Harry would have a lot to tell his friends at school when they went back including masses of photos he could show them. He had got into the habit of taking lots of photos on his trips and then putting them all into photo albums when he got them developed. They had spent the night in a hotel there as seeing Rome in one day was impossible. And tourist groups that tried tended to be chased around by their guides without being able to stay and take pictures. They had simply bought a City Tourist Guide and visited the impressive relicts of times past at their own pace.

Naples had a history because of its close proximity to Mount Vesuvius, an active volcano but thankfully there hadn't been an eruption since 1944. It was also a city that had been targeted massively in World War II, the catacombs under the village had helped people escape the bombs sometimes, and there were other impressive sights, Jessica especially liked strolling through one of the beautiful gardens. Venice was famous for the water passages that crossed all over the city. The three had travelled through Venice in a gondola and got to see unique parts of the city which were hidden if you didn't use the waterways.

Right now Harry was building a sand castle. He had played in the water with Jessica for half an hour before tiring and deciding that a sand castle was what he wanted to do now. He also knew that Keith and Jessica should have some time for themselves. He had found another boy a year younger than him who wanted to help him and so the two young boys were determined to create the best sand castle ever. They used water to make the sand hold together better and created tunnels with shells as doors. They were busy for an hour before their parents called them back. And Harry secretly saw Keith and Jessica as the closest thing he had to parents. He knew that Keith couldn't adopt him thanks to the problems the wizarding government would give him, but Harry could live with it as long as he was treated like Keith's son. And Jessica, since she had joined their family, had become the mother figure he had wanted for so long.

Harry was very happy that his life was so good right now. It wasn't perfect, but loads better than before Keith had used the charms to make the Dursleys basically forget him.

* * *

**And cut. Till next time.**


End file.
